Persona 4: A Shuffled Deck
by An1meG33K
Summary: Destiny. It's a strange and fickle thing. Sometimes the wheel of fate can turn in ways we can't expect. Sometimes, the cards fall in different places than they did before. Either way, Yumi Ozawa's going to need to keep her wits about her as she tries to handle one hell of an insane mystery in Inaba.
1. Prologue: Same Story, Different Actors

AN: Hiya, dudes and dudettes! I've decided to start a P4 AU Fanfic. Yes, it's a role swap, but with a few twists! Instead of just shuffling the Investigation Team, _everyone_ is being swapped. Yep. New IT, new killers, new Social Links, the works. The only thing is that some characters, like Igor, shall stay in their rightful places. Second, I'm going to keep everyone's Arcana the same unless I need to. With all these twists and turns, let's see just how this tale shall unfold!

* * *

April 10, 2011. 12:00 AM

Yumi Ozawa stretched out and yawned. "Man, I feel tired," she mumbled to herself, slowly rubbing the sleep away from her eyes. As she was doing so, she soon realized that she wasn't in her home anymore. She looked around where she was. "W-where am I?" She was in a strange limousine. All around her, she saw blue. Blue windows, blue carpeting and seating, and shining blue lights surrounded her. In the limousine, there were two other passengers seated with her. One was a regal looking woman dressed in a blue coat, as if to match the color of the room she was seated in. Her hair was a fair, almost white, blonde, an unusual haircolor, unless she bleached it. for She had piercing yellow eyes, looking as if she was using them peer into Yumi's very soul. However, the passenger that truly caught Yumi's attention was the second passenger, a short hunchbacked man who had his hands folded in front of his face, as if he was contemplating something. He reminded Yumi of one of those vampires in the old black and white films, Nosferasomething? His ears were pointed much like an elf's, and he was dressed in an immaculate pitch-black tuxedo. He was bald, except for a ring of hair around his head that reminded Yumi of a halo, and his eyebrows were grey like stormclouds, large and menacing. However, the strangest thing about that man was his nose. Sharp and hooked, much like a bird's beak, Yumi couldn't help but stare at it. Suddenly, the man's eyes slowly opened, revealing his large bloodshot eyes, and he stared at Yumi directly, chilling her to the bone.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room." He said cordially. On his face, he had a terrifying smirk, and it only scared Yumi further. "Ah… it seems we have a guest with an intriguing destiny…" The short man chuckled, a menacing sound, almost if Death itself was laughing at her. "My name is Igor… I am delighted to make your acquaintance." Yumi could only nod at that, too fearful to speak in front of the hunchback. "This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter…" Igor continued. "It is a room where only those bound by a 'contract' may enter. Perhaps such a fate awaits you in the near future." Igor's smile widened. "Now then… Why don't you introduce yourself…?"

Suddenly, Yumi felt her throat close up and become dry. "Y-" She coughed in her fist in an attempt to clear her throat. "Yumi Ozawa," She managed to croak out feebly.

Igor nodded. "Hmm… I see… Now then, Miss Ozawa, let's take a look into your future, shall we?" Igor held his hand over the small blue table, and suddenly, a small glowing blue deck of cards appeared out of thin air. "Do you believe in fortune telling?" With a swift sweep of his hands, the deck separated into several different cards, all face down on the table. Despite not believing in tarot cards or anything of that nature, Yumi had her attention focused completely on the cards. Maybe it was the fact that they glowed blue, something that she knew wasn't supposed to be happening. Maybe it was the pull she felt towards the cards, as if they were a part of her. Maybe it was the words Igor was speaking, pulling her in. "Each reading is done with the same cards, yet the result is already different… Life follows the same principles, doesn't it?" He chuckled amicably, and he flipped one of the cards over. A tall structure struck by a bolt of lightning, breaking the structure apart. Several small people dove out of the building in fear. "Hm… The Tower in the Upright position represents the immediate future. It seems a terrible catastrophe is imminent. The card indicating the future beyond, that is…"

Yumi's eyes widened at that. "Catastrophe? In Inaba?" Igor continued on with his reading, seemingly not letting Yumi's reaction interrupt him.

As Yumi watched with bated breath, Igor flipped a second card over. This one was of a simpler design, featuring a crescent moon with a gentle-looking face on it. Above the moon were two structures, and strangely enough, a small crayfish. "This card represents 'hesitation' and 'mystery…' very interesting indeed." Yumi looked up to meet the strange man's gaze. "It seems you will encounter a misfortune in your future, and a great mystery shall be imposed upon you." His grin widened. "In the coming days, you shall enter in a contract of some sort, after which you will return here. The coming year is a turning point in your destiny… If the mystery goes unsolved, your future will be forever lost."

Yumi swallowed nervously at that. _"No pressure or anything…"_

"My duty is to provide assistance to guests such as yourself to ensure that does not happen."

 _"So he's on my side?"_ Yumi pondered. _"Could have fooled me…"_

Igor's eyes widened in surprise. "Ah! How very rude of me! I have neglected to introduce my assistant to you." *He made a hand gesture to the regal-looking woman beside him. "This is Margaret. She is a resident of this place, like myself."

The woman nodded politely towards Yumi. "My name is Margaret," *The golden-eyed woman stated simply.* "I am here to accompany you throughout your journey." *Yumi respectfully nodded towards the woman in return.

"We shall attend to the details at a different time," Igor interrupted, bringing Yumi's attention back to the small hunchback. "Until then, farewell, Miss Ozawa…" And then, despite her best efforts, Yumi felt her eyelids become heavy once more, and slowly but surely, she began to fall asleep, and the strange blue room and its residents began to gradually fade away.

* * *

AN: Sorry it's short. I promise the next chapter will be longer.


	2. Chapter 1: New Beginnings

AN: ...I got nothing.

* * *

April 12, 2011 12:01 AM

Yumi bolted upwards, clutching at her heart. She took a look at her surroundings. She was back in her room, no blue seats, no windows, no strange people speaking about contracts and shuffling their tarot cards. Yumi scratched her head in confusion. "What happened?" She mumbled sleepily. "What the Hell was that dream?" Yumi shook her head in confusion. "It was just a dream, nothing more, nothing less…" With that thought echoing in her head, Yumi laid her head back down to sleep, though there was still some part of her that doubted that thought. "Just go to sleep," she thought to herself. "Everything will make sense in the morning…"

* * *

Later…

Yumi's eye twitched as she tried to resist the urge to slam her head against her desk repeatedly. "Dear God, why?" She was sitting in philosophy class with Mr. Morooka, better known as King Moron by the majority of the school populace. He had gone on another of his famous rants again, rambling on and on about 'kids today' and the theoretical goings on about them. Honestly, it would be almost entertaining to watch if he wasn't specifically talking about them. At the moment, King Moron was ranting about some new kid from the city that would be in his homeroom in a few days.

"…city full of perverts and assholes, in more ways than one! People like this damned new kid! But what do I know… it's not like the old days anymore. Even here, kids grow up so damn fast. Every time I turn my back, you're fooling around on those damn phones, checking your life-journals and your my-places… NAGASE, WAKE YOUR SORRY ASS UP!" Suddenly, King Moron stopped his ramblings about youth these days to bring a certain soccer jock back out of dreamland.

Said soccer jock, Daisuke Nagase, was instantly jolted awake by the outburst. "GAH!" He cried out in panic. "42! The Isle of Gibraltar! Nihilism!" When he realized that King Moron was glaring daggers at him, he gulped nervously. "Aw, crap…"

Morooka touched his hand to his forehead and grumbled in anger. "Goddamn brats, don't even have the decency to pay attention in class…" He walked over to his desk and pulled out a bottle of pills. After swallowing down some, he turned his attention back to the unlucky jock. "Nagase, see me after class!"

The soccer player's jaw dropped. "B-but I have practice!"

"Tough shit! You should have thought of that before you fell asleep in my class! Oh wait! You can't think at all with that pathetic little marble you call a brain!" One desk behind Daisuke, his best friend Kou Ichijo began to snicker at his buddy's plight. Unfortunately for him, this gained the attention of King Moron. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ichijo! Did I say something funny?!" Kou's face blanched as King Moron sauntered over to his desk. "Well?!"

"I… er… uh…" Kou floundered to try and find a decent excuse, to no avail.

"See me after class!" Kou merely sighed in defeat, and laid down his head on his desk.

Yumi rolled her eyes at that display. Without fail, one or both of those two meatheads would say or do something to get themselves in trouble, not that it was hard to do that in King Moron's class. Why they thought taking one of King Moron's classes was a good idea was beyond her. Maybe they thought it was an easy A? The bell rung,interrupting Yumi's theories on her classmates' motivations. Quickly, Yumi packed up her supplies, and readied herself to head home. Drama Club unfortunately wasn't meeting that day, so that left her with nothing to do but head home.

As Yumi walked home, her thoughts drifted back to that strange dream she had. "What was that whole thing about? Contracts? And what was that about 'mysteries' and 'tragedies?'" While she was lost in thought, she ended up colliding with another person. After being jolted back to reality, she realized her mistake. "Oh! Sorry about that! I wasn't looking where I was going."

The person she bumped into, a worker at the gas station, based on her clothing, shook her head in apology. "It's fine. I wasn't paying attention either." The worker stuck out her hand in a friendly manner. "Sorry about that."

Yumi reciprocated the gesture, grabbing the worker's hand and shaking. "No problem."

Suddenly, the worker's watch began to beep. "Oh, crap! I gotta get back to work!" She nodded once again to Yumi. "Hope your day goes better!"

* * *

Elsewhere…

A man in a formal black turtleneck stood in a strange void, empty of anything except himself. A strange white butterfly-like mask covered most of his face. Quietly, he shuffled a deck of tarot cards in his hands. "Destiny has changed, so it seems..." He mumbled quietly to himself. "I wonder..."

Suddenly, he bent the cards, scattering them into the air. The cards seemed to fly about the whole area, like butterflies, before gently falling back down to the ground. Eight cards first fell onto the ground: The Fool, The Magician, The Chariot, The High Priestess, The Emperor, The Star, The Lovers, and The Wheel of Fortune "Interesting…" The man in black mused. He turned his head upwards, before several more cards began to fall down from above. Some cards began to be covered by others. The Fool was covered by The Sun, and likewise, six more cards were soon covered by different cards.

The man smiled to himself. "Well, let's see what this new hand presents…" However, one last card began to float down. The Lust card. The masked figure watched with curiosity as the most wretched of the Arcana slowly descended down onto the floor, before landing amongst the pile with the rest of the cards. He raised his eyebrow at where it had landed. That certainly wasn't expected… "Interesting indeed…" A grim smile slowly formed as the figure he looked upwards, seemingly at nothing. "And so it begins…"

* * *

Yumi suddenly hissed in pain, holding her hand up to her head. Her brain began to pulse in pure agony, like a nail was being driven into her skull.

"Miss, is there something wrong?" The worker cocked her head in confusion.

Yumi continued to press her hand against her head. "It's nothing, it's nothing…" Yumi pushed her way past the worker. She needed to lie down. Soon, then her vision began to get blurry, but she tried her best to press on. When she saw her house, she immediately ran in, before quickly running to her room to get some rest.


End file.
